Monday, January 6, 2014

New Release - Vision of Shadows

Look at what is out now! The cover is awesome and the story looks fantastic! Check it out.

See? Isn't it pretty? Read on to find out more.

Blurb:

Is Bristol Blackburn about to meet the love of her life...or her killer?

After the death of her parents, Bristol Blackburn's life is thrown into chaos and she's forced to move to Spirit, a small town where shadows are stirring. As she learns to navigate her new school and figures out how to keep her psychic abilities secret from her family, Bristol comes face to face with the boy who makes a regular appearance in her dreams: the gorgeous, possibly deadly, Payne McKnight. Soon she’ll find out if Payne will be the love of her life, or the end of it — and she has no idea which possibility scares her more.

And that's not even the worst of it. Strange shadows are haunting her dreams, and they're up to something that could put Bristol and the lives of everyone she loves in jeopardy.

Also Vince wrote about picking character names. Something that is super hard for me.

What’s in a name?

One of the first things I decided on when I started Vision of Shadows were the names of my characters. I had been trolling some baby site names (Wow, hope that doesn’t sound creepy!) and I came across a little article on two different women who had named their sons Payne. They had both thought that it was an interesting and unique name. Plus, they got to introduce their sons as their “Little Payne.” I instantly fell in love with it and knew I had to have a character named Payne. I kept trying out different last names until I thought of McKnight. I just seemed perfect. Payne McKnight.

One afternoon, I was watching football and saw the roster of the NY Giants flash across the screen. They have linebacker named Chase Blackburn. Both names stood out to me as particularly cool. I eventually put the name Blackburn together with the first name Bristol and had my main character, Bristol Blackburn.

As I started to develop the concept for the story, I knew I was going to have two families with a generations old feud. Those families would be the Blackburn’s and the McKnight’s. I quickly came up with the names of the Bristol’s immediate family. I remembered that article where I read the name Payne and recalled that one of the women had stated that her husband liked the name since he had grown up with such a normal name, Mark. Something clicked in my head. (Or the hamster fell off the wheel!) Bristol’s uncle was christened Mark. I decided his young sons would be named Simon (He’s smart and I was thinking of that old game Simon Says) Zach, and their grandfather, Greg. All fairly basic names that just seemed to work. I still had the name Chase in my head, wanting to come out and I always wanted to use the name Blasé, which I had heard used in the Harry Potter book.

Somewhere along the line, it occurred to me that the McKnight family would all have very unique names. It would become important that there would never be a Bob or Stanley McKnight. Payne’s grandfather was originally named Victor, but that just wasn’t McKnight enough. So he was re-christened Varick.

Whenever I needed names, even names used in passing, I’d google Unique Baby Names and find a bunch of baby naming sites and start scanning for names that stood out. Balthazar, Hunter, and Archer just to mention a few. It became woven into the fabric of the story.

As the series has progressed, I’ve always paid very close attention to names. And when I’m out and about, if I hear a name that’s unique and different, I file it away. You never know when it’s going to come in handy.

So anytime I hear a name that piques my interest, I think, “Hey now. That could be a new character!”

Find out more about the author.

About the Author:

Born and raised in Brooklyn NY, Vincent Morrone now resides in Upstate NY with his wife. (Although he can still speak fluent Brooklynese.) His twin daughters remain not only his biggest fans, but usually are the first to read all of his work. Their home is run and operated for the comfort and convenience of their dogs.

Vincent has been writing fiction, poetry and song lyrics for as long as he can remember, most of which involve magical misfits, paranormal prodigies and even on occasion superheroes and their sidekicks.

As they say in Brooklyn: Yo, you got something to say to Vincent?

Check out http://vincentmorrone.com/ where you can learn about Vincent and leave him a comment. You can also connect with Vincent on Twitter https://twitter.com/Vince524 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Morrrone.